Revision as of 11:24, 10 October 2017

North American box art.

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest is an action adventure platformer by Konami released on the Famicom Disk System in 1987 and later ported to the NES in 1988. It is the second game in the Castlevania series and changes format slightly to be more of an adventure game, making it the first Castlevania title to be a Metroidvania. In the game's story, though Simon Belmont has vanquished Dracula, his body parts remain scattered throughout the land allowing his spirit to cause mayhem, especially at night. You must gather his body parts to bring him back and destroy him once an for all.

I had seen Castlevania II in video game magazines, and even found the game's manual in the snow while walking home from a friend's house, long before I had a chance to play the game. When I finally did play it, I was very disappointed. I died very quickly from being knocked into pits, and had no idea what I was doing. From everything I read about the game, it was pretty much unplayable without a walk-through, so I never bothered to get very far.

Years, later, I remember telling a friend of mine that I was sure someone made a translation patch for the game fixing all of the terrible dialogue, but, unable to find one, I decided to make one myself, which I did. It was even featured on The Angry Video Game Nerd.

Contents

Status

Review

Good

The adventure element of the game is really quite nice. I prefer it over the stages of the original.

The plot is pretty cool.

The graphics and music are both fantastic.

I like the idea of multiple endings depending on how quickly you can beat the game.

Having items and Dracula's body parts give you bonus abilities based on which one is selected is a good mechanic.

The save feature in the FDS version is great, it's a shame the NES version got a password system.

The manual has a nice layout and attractive drawings.

Bad

People late in the game often give you advice that you would most certainly have known by then.

The description in the endings doesn't really fit with how well you do in the game.

The text read out and day/night transitions are obnoxiously slow.

Ugly

The poorly translated dialogue and manual makes it impossible to progress very far in the game, and thus make it unwinnable without a walk-through.

Box Art

The original Japanese FDS box art is great. Simon looks bad-ass in his armor, his whip jumps out at you, and Dracula looms ominously in the background in his castle. The lettering is also fantastic, Japanese Kanji in a German Blackletter style, dripping with blood!

The North American uses the same are as the original, but covers portions up with the Konami gray box. That, and the more basic lettering, give the box a more tame look.

The European box is tamer still eliminating Dracula altogether. Worst of the three by far.